Question

I am trying to write a ruby app to update Google Contact Photos but I cant get the upload working. Im not sure if I have misunderstood the Google API but this is what I have so far:

Net::HTTP.start(URI.parse(image_element.attributes['href']).host) do |http|
  response, body = http.put(URI.parse(image_element.attributes['href']).path, data, {'If-Match' => '*', 'content-type'=>'image/*'})
end

The Google Data API says:

Every contact has a photo link
element. It has the form:

href=’https://www.google.com/m8/feeds/photos/media/liz%40gmail.com/c9012de’
gd:etag='”KTlcZWs1bCp7ImBBPV43VUV4LXEZCXERZAc.”‘>

That element appears whether the
contact has an associated photo or
not. If the contact does have a photo,
then the element contains a gd:etag
attribute specifying an ETag for the
photo. If the contact has no photo,
then there’s no gd:etag attribute, and
the href attribute provides the URL to
use to add a photo to the contact.

To add or update a photo given the
element shown above, send a new
photo with a PUT command to the URL:
https://www.google.com/m8/feeds/photos/media/liz%40gmail.com/c9012de.
Remember to set a proper “image/*”
Content-Type header.

To delete a photo, send an HTTP DELETE
request to the same URL.

When updating or deleting a photo,
send the photo’s ETag in the If-Match
header of the HTTP request.
Alternatively, use If-Match: * to
update or delete regardless of whether
you have the latest version of the
photo.

Can anyone see where I am going wrong?

UPDATE AND ANSWER:
I’ve managed to get this working with some help from StackOverflow and a mate. Basically what was wrong was the incorrect MIME type being set (see below) but also I wasn’t authenticated properly with Google for the PUT request. What I was trying to write was a Script that updates any missing Google Contact Photos with images from Gravatar (where possible). Once I got it working it worked great: managed to match about 2 – 3 dozen contacts. I wrote a blog post on the script in case anyone wants to run it also: http://ashleyangell.com/2011/06/ruby-script-to-import-google-contact-photos-from-gravatar/

Answer 1

I’ve never used the Google Data API myself, but try setting the Content-Type header to, for example, image/jpeg, rather than just image/*.